GCSE Summer 2020 Thread 7 : Carry on Corona Cohort, Cruising or Crawling to The Final Countdown

[OrangeCinnamon1]

Welcome all to the 7th Thread for this year's GCSE cohort ...or the Corona Cohort as has been termed by @FoolsAssassin.

Some of us have been here since I started first thread back in 2010, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. It is hoped this will continue. Going forward we intend to stay in secondary so any new threads should have 'GCSE Summer 2020 Thread # : Carry on Corona Cohort' in title just to make it easier to find.

From now on our DS/DD may go down various paths so we decided not to be exclusionary and stay right here in Secondary

Thread 1 The first GCSE yr 10

Thread 6 last thread

The problem is government are more concerned about national stats than they are about individual grades. The system has allowed some students at high performing schools who weren’t high performing themselves to be awarded top grades I.e carried by the rest of the cohort. This means snatching top grades from hard working students in schools with average results. The overall stats look right and are in line with previous yrs but the distribution of those grades is flawed.

Be very interesting to see how types of schools/students does affect changes in results.

For example, I suspect selective schools that typically get a lot of high results may be seeing their results relatively unchanged. And comps in areas with variable intakes (which is my DS's school) are more likely to vary?

gosh the a level thread looks like most kids got dropped down and some really sad stories of kids with high predictions getting much lower. is this the minority? going to go and seek out any objective analysis on how the a levels have gone

When is the ofqual conference?

I’m sorry to hear that Piggy.

Do hope it’s good news for everyone with A level DC on this thread.

There are some really depressing posts, we need to hear from Ofqual what is happening about appeals urgently . Some have lost places and if there isn’t clarity very soon the Triple Lock isn’t worth the paper it is written on (and I doubt they have got as far as writing it down !).

If the process means that schools are reluctant to appeal in some cases then that would be awful so let’s hope some sensible news comes through soon.

That A level thread makes for scary reading. It’s absolutely ridiculous that there is no firm information on how this mock bullshit being spouted will apply to appeals.

This is doing nothing to calm my anxiety levels for next week:

The other thing to consider; whilst I know A levels are more important to university progression, down grading in GCSE English and maths from a 5 to a 3 will mean mandatory retakes for students that could well have otherwise passed and then have to cope with retakes alongside new subjects in greater depth at A Level.

Looking at these kids being moved down 2 grades means this is extremely feasible for middle attaining students to fail maths and or English thanks to an algorithm!!

I know Cherry am still hoping things might be different by next Thursday.

Head of local Grammar does not sound happy in the paper:

“Whilst on the surface, our overall results appear to be very good, the standardisation process has been grossly unfair to a number of individual students in a range of subjects.

"As a school, we believe that the centre-assessed grades that we submitted are a better reflection of the grade a student would have achieved had they sat their exams this year, as we have taken into account the full range of available evidence, and not relied simply upon
historical data and a statistical model.

"Whilst we may have many concerns over algorithms, models and statistics, our main concerns are for the mental well-being and the life chances of the young people we serve. We contend that this government-led debacle has been detrimental to both.

"Our young people deserve better. As their teachers, we feel responsible for them, but powerless to do anything for them than offer our support, and challenge at the highest level the process that has been used to vary the awarded grades from those which we submitted, and they deserve.”

‘

We are very lucky in scheme of things tinge going second and really feel for the A level parents and students. Think as things stand ta the moment we do have to prepare ourselves that there are likely to be some difficult moments next week.

Does anyone have a link to the A level thread. I can't find it.

Found the following on twitter- can't vouch for its accuracy but nevertheless:
A-Level Results Stats:

39.1% downgraded overall
-35.6% were decreased by 1 grade
-3.5% decreased by 2 or more grades

2.2% upgraded overall
-2.14% increased by 1 grade
-0.06% increased by 2 or more grades

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3993327-University-2020-7-Results-tombola-roll-up-roll-up-pick-a-prize?pg=9

Thank you

Our classics results are a case in point. Newish subject which had teething problems in 2017 and so got very poor results. By the third year, they would have sorted much of this out. But because they have never had an A*, the algorithm simply wouldn't allow it. No grades over B. Six students downgraded, 4 by 2 grades...

Yikes.

And yet they want more state schools to offer it?!

It’s a real mare’s nest! The Ofqual clarification statement looks like frantic backtracking to me. Using mock results as ‘part of’ the appeal process is not what Gavin Williamson said last night at all.

I heard the interview yesterday and he DID say that they would be used as part of the appeal.

The potential fall our from this is huge, no wonder there was a late night announcement to try and mitigate it. Another local Head saying that in their school it’s those who made the most progress between GCSE and A level who got hammered.

Is the algorithm being published? I know it’s the exam boards but I don’t trust anything that the Government had even a tiny hand in - do we now beyond all doubt that it actually does what it is suppose to do ? How vigorous was the testing? What happened to make the sudden announcement about mocks, was that as a result of something last minute testing threw up ? How do these things work ?

Oqual published this just, along with various other files being updated. Tried to make some sense of it but gave up.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/awarding-gcse-as-a-levels-in-summer-2020-interim-report

Our local councillor has a DC at DS’s school and by the sound of it is there with them picking up A level results . Says the number of people there crying as results downgraded is heartbreaking. Gives us an induction of next week I think .

The news yesterday definitely said the pupils could use their mock result if that was better.
Then that was fudged into a situation where it might be very hard for that to actually happen.
So we were either initially lied to or Ofqual/exam boards refused to do what the government wanted.
There has to be a quick and easy appeal process that either reverts to CAG or valid mock result, like Scotland has done.

I had a peep on the A-level thread -

DD in floods of tears fearing the worst for next week. My FB feed is strangely quiet - normally would be full of proud parents celebrating their DC’s successes today.

I tried to scan through the Ofqual standardisation info released this morning, to try and understand what’s going on, but it’s 320 pages of highly technical stuff and completely beyond me, I’m afraid.

Also I don't understand about pupils who made progress being affected the worst.
Will the moderation for GCSEs not take into account the very important indicator of Progress 8 score?

No idea neutralintelligence here’s what was said :

“Many are struggling to understand why any of their grades were arbitrarily downgraded by an Exam board when the standard of their work over two years, including their mock exams, was clearly much higher. Students who really improved academically from their GCSE results during their time in our Sixth Form seem particularly affected by the algorithm, as though the Boards failed to understand students can and do improve over time. Subjects which had improved massively and were genuinely achieving much higher standards this year have also been arbitrarily penalised and downgraded. To staff and students affected by this I can only offer my sympathy, as the government seem intent on ignoring improvement in standards.”

Maybe it will be different for GCSE? And maybe that is specific to that particular school for some reason ?

Commiserations, Piggy, you must be gutted. 😞

Just spoken to a teacher friend at DD’s school and she said their AS/A2 results are exactly as predicted.
I’d like to think that’s a good omen for us for next week...but in all honesty, we have no idea what CAGs they may have submitted.

I had a peep on the A-level thread -

I know , I am not looking forward to next week at all.

I’m furious. Where can pressure be applied? The A-level thread makes grim reading at times.

I keep seeing overall percentages & the increase of students going to Uni. No mention of individuals or inflated grades in some areas & downgrading in others. Those poor students. Completely unfair.

What happened to BoJo’s promise that no child would be negatively affected? 😔